The Origins of Silicon Valley: Why and How It Happened Here

Why did Silicon Valley come into being? The story goes back to local Hams (amateur radio operators) trying to break RCA's tube patents, "angel" investors, the sinking of the Titanic, Fred Terman and Stanford University, local invention of high-power tubes, WW II and radar, William Shockley's mother living in Palo Alto, and the SF Bay Area infrastructure that developed - these factors pretty much determined that the semiconductor and IC industries would be located in the Santa Clara Valley, and that the Valley would remain the world's innovation center as new technologies emerged - computers, then software, mobile, biotech, Big Data, VR, and not autonomous vehicles - and it would become the model for innovation worldwide.